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I listen to planet money and a few other podcasts. They seem pretty fair to me. The only way I could maybe see a progressive bias is that they have representation in their staff of racial and sexual minorities. I see no issue with that.

Honest question, does NPR have any token conservative pundits or voices on their broadcasts or shows? I know they have a lot of minority representation. As usual, Trumps proposed solution is idiotic. But maybe there could be an unofficial settlement to make sure all perspectives are heard?

Assuming this is even a problem…

The attack on PBS seems ridiculous.

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does NPR have any token conservative pundits or voices on their broadcasts or shows?

They do the same format almost all news shows do where they introduce an issue and have two people with opposing views discuss it (there was a recent one about fossil fuels and renewables which I can't find...). This format doesn't always fall along "conservative vs other" lines though, because issues aren't necessarily that simple.

They also have one on one interview with Republican lawmakers as well. This one is from today's Morning Edition: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5383297/rep-jeff-hurd-d...

It is important not to just have someone to represent a viewpoint, but also that they are equally "good" at it (I'm not sure what that means!). One way to be biased is to have someone incompetent represent a viewpoint - creating a strawman that is easy to knock down.

There have been loads of others but here is a prominent and slightly ironic example of what you are asking about: Tucker Carlson built his early TV career in large part as a conservative pundit on PBS.

> does NPR have any token conservative pundits or voices on their broadcasts or shows?

They used to (e.g., Bob Edwards, who founded Morning Edition) but the Overton Window shifted out from under them. Steve Inskeep today lies somewhere in the center-right (a fiscally conservative Never-Trumper is my brief take on him) but that’s not right enough to count as a conservative these days.

It's shifted so far right that looking at news headlines gives me anxiety that we're in a bad enough time / timeline that modern events will be chapters in future history books; assuming we still have books (in any form).

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